


put your emptiness to melody

by scrxbble



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Hot Boys Summer, M/M, featuring i haven't read sheet music in a year but i'm sure faking it, naddcord canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:46:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25685251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrxbble/pseuds/scrxbble
Summary: Tred is upstairs at a party, and there is music being written.
Relationships: Mavrus/Tred Nevers
Comments: 17
Kudos: 23





	put your emptiness to melody

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is canon until we discover that cormac is named something other than cormac  
> song title from sing by hozier  
> i considered putting a glossary of musical terms but. you'll figure it out.

Somewhere downstairs, there was the music of a party happening - not anything big, just a group of people that they’d run into on the beach earlier, all fast talking sixteenth notes and pealing laughter where the boys usually had easygoing rests, and Dave had invited back with the promise of spiced-up instant noodles and, truly, so much beer. More than the four of them alone would be able to finish, that was for sure.

So there were people downstairs, drinking their beer in slow half note sips and politely declining Dave’s latest experiment-disguised-as-dinner in short eighths, talking and laughing in easy, simple four/four time, but upstairs, in three/four, just off beat, solo, Tred sat, a beer in his hand, halfway cradling his guitar and glancing over, ever so often, not entirely of his own accord at the twin bed that mirrored his own, the harmony of matching sheets still rumpled from where Mavrus hadn’t made them that morning. His friend had only slept there one night, snoring in staccato and there were already clothes crumpled at the foot of the bed and an impressive collection of empty cans on the dresser, threatening to fall over and disrupt the music.

He’d come late last night, barely knocking, just barging in with the usual accented forte, loud and quick, two beers tucked under each arm and a change of clothes. “Dave fell asleep in my bed, and Mac fell asleep in his, and I’m not gonna fit on Mac’s couch,” he’d said by way of greeting, tossing a bottle to Tred, speaking in quiet quick allegro, “and you have an empty one here. Mind if I take over for the night?”

Tred hadn’t minded - he didn’t mind. He’d nodded slowly, left a whole rest out for good measure. There was just something nagging him about sharing a room with Mavrus that said that it wasn’t a good idea, something other than the cluttered sixteenth notes of messiness and the fact that Mavrus always slept past noon and was cranky if he got woken up before he could rouse himself, stretching out in easy adagio. Something about the fact that they’d stayed up a little later than usual while Mavrus got ready for bed, not minding the late hour, talking about their day and the beach and the drinks that Mac had been making, an easy rhythm of quarter notes pounding out a familiar beat. Something about the way Mavrus had said, when Tred was almost asleep, sotto voce, a quiet undertone of melody, “I wish we could all stay here forever. Just like this.”

A knock - one single quarter note - shook the memory from his head and Mavrus was smiling at him from the doorway, eyebrows raised as he took in the covers over Tred’s legs and the guitar at his side. “You gonna stay up here all night, dude? Mac’s remaking the beeramid downstairs. Thought you were campaigning for that thing.”

Tred laughed, nervously, a smattering of triplets - he had nothing to be nervous about. They’d played this song out a million times. “We could make one in here just from your cans from last night, dude.”

“Oh, man, Mac’s postal and he’s insisting we only use cans from tonight. No retrieving them from old shower beers. It’s crazy, dude, you gotta come down.”

“Yeah, Mac fucking loves that thing, dude.” Tred didn’t move. Mavrus stepped further inside and let the door shut behind him, old hinges creaking in C minor, yearning for something they couldn’t reach.

“What’s up, dude?”

The bed groaned slightly in harmony with the door as Tred shifted, closing his notebook, putting his guitar away, his hands flying in eighth notes so Mavrus wouldn’t look at his face. “I’m just not feeling it tonight.” Steady quarter notes, not the dotted half note of a lie.

Mavrus sighed, adagio, leaning up against the wall. “If you’re avoiding downstairs because you think Mac is gonna drag you out to the deck, he’s busy. Beeramid, dude.”

“It’s not that, man, I’m just feeling a quiet night, you know?”

There were too many people downstairs - bodies laughing in stuttered, fast presto and shotgunning beers on the back deck through long low whole notes underscored with chanting quarter notes and someone had screamed, earlier, a high C without warning, and Tred had needed to disappear from the shitshow of a song downstairs.

He just hadn’t expected Mavrus to notice he was gone. When he’d slipped away, his friend was holding court in the living room, recounting the story of How Hungry Dave Got His Name, vivace, eyes and face lively, a crowd favorite, and keeping his lords and ladies entertained with accented marcato sparks from his fingertips at opportune moments (though Tred wasn’t sure, having heard the story before, that Dave bumping his head on the doorway into the boat’s cabin was necessarily spark-worthy). Now, though, his admirers and their syncopated laughter were gone, and Mavrus was alone, still leaning against the wall.

Instead, Mavrus sat down next to him, and Tred pulled his legs in quickly to make room, jarring his three/four beat. “I feel that, dude.”

Mavrus had his own bed. He had two beds, if you counted the one that Dave had taken over last night as still being his, which Mavrus had laughed off in eighth notes when Tred had asked that morning if he would be trading for the rest of the trip. “Maybe if Dave washes the sheets, I’ll think about switching back. You don’t mind if I stay, do you?”

He hadn’t minded - he didn’t mind. He’d laughed too, his eighth notes turned into unsure triplets at the end. But Mavrus wasn’t on either of his beds now - he was sitting on Tred’s, right at the foot, where Tred could see in the mirror that the back of his hair was mussed from his patented wall-lean, where Tred could feel his leg tap moderato to the beat downstairs against the leg nearest him. “You writing?”

Tred could feel his cheeks warm, crescendo into a blush and hoped the single lamp wasn’t bright enough to show it. “Yeah, a little.”

“Can I see?”

“Nah, dude, it’s stupid,” Tred said, his usual motif, though as Mavrus moved to grab the notebook, he didn’t stop him, stayed back against the headboard, watched the whole notes unfold with the pages. “Just lyrics and stuff.”

Mavrus didn’t seem to listen as he flicked through it, mouthing words to himself, his finger tracing them along the page, largo, slow and steady - like in school, Tred thought, where, when he wasn’t fully ignoring homework assignments, Mavrus would read them just like he read now, one slim finger following his eyes along the page. “It makes ‘em stop moving around. They jump around each other if I don’t,” he explained once, first year, when Tred was still new and too shy to ignore assignments like his loud, foulmouthed, perpetually forte new friends did so often.

This wasn’t high school, though, and thank whoever was looking down on them for that. This was the summer, and this was the beach house, and this was Tred’s tiny room, and this was Mavrus on his bed, glancing up from the page he was on with a grin that was sharp and slightly off key, as usual.

“These are good, dude. Have you shown Dave? He’d love them.”

Tred’s face heated again. The melody rose. “Nah, man, no one else has read those new ones.”

“You write the music yet?”

A head shake - two eighth notes. “Not yet. The noise downstairs-”

A nod - one quarter note. “Yeah, I get it.” A single rest, then Mavrus stood again, and Tred missed the weight of him, missed the harmonies it had made. “You should still come downstairs. Mac’s trying to impress this kid with his knowledge of IPAs.”

“Maybe.” They both knew it meant no - that was how their song went, usually - but Mavrus didn’t leave yet. He stood, hovering by the door in whole notes, then fixing his hair in the mirror in half notes, then walking over to his dresser to rifle through drawers for a different shirt in quick steady quarter notes, finally turning around to start a new measure with something tropical in his hands.

“You still sleeping here tonight?” Tred asked, changing the line, desperate to move the subject before Mavrus started to change in silence of eighth rests.

His friend shrugged, two quick beats, kept his shirt on. “I’m not sleeping anywhere that fucking Sweat Back Dave has until he washes the sheets, so yeah. Til you kick me out.”

“I wouldn’t, dude,” Tred said, and then felt himself start to fix his statement, decrescendo his excitement, that idiotic thing, of course you wouldn’t kick him out but you don’t have to sound so eager-

Fabric hit him across the face, suddenly, loudly, sforzando - orange blossoms on black. “Dude. Put that on and come downstairs with me.”

“Mav, dude, I’m good up here.”

Mavrus frowned a little, something almost wistful, just offbeat of triste flashing in his eyes, then turned away, scrambling through his drawers again in off-beat sixteenth notes. “Okay, then I have something else you’d like-”

“Mav.” He turned back around at the sound of the staccato call, forehead creased with something worried. “I said I’m good up here.”

“Yeah, but-” Mavrus sighed, ran a hand along his horn, legato, like he was slowing down to catch his thoughts. “It’s not as fun without you down there, dude.”

“You looked like you were having fun.” It came out angrily uptempo, more annoyed than Tred meant it to. “Which is good. Everyone was having a good time.”

“Dude-” Mavrus stopped again, started again, stopped, a dance of staccato notes “It’s just-” Another sigh, something grandioso and solemn hovering underneath. “What’s the point of partying if your bros aren’t there, dude?”

“Mac and Dave are there,” Tred pointed out, not sure why he was so eager for Mavrus to leave, not sure why his stomach was on a different beat than the rest of him.

“Yeah, and Mac is making a beeramid of the highest order, and Dave is drunk off his fucking ass, dude. And-” Mavrus glanced back at Tred, and his golden eyes were unfathomable - more unfathomable than usual, notes flitting across them too fast to play out, harmonies changing as he stood. He rolled his eyes - at Tred? At himself? - and continued. “And we’re at beach week to hang out with each other and have the time of our lives before I leave, not to sit on the deck with fucking randos and shotgun beers poorly.”

“Is Mac upset that the shotgunned beer cans can’t be used for the beeramid?”

“Of course he is, dude. Don’t change the subject.”

“Why can’t we both just stay up here?” Tred said - almost pled, voice wavering in vibrato. “If we go back downstairs, you’ll-”

He stopped, because Mavrus was looking at him again. Unfathomably. “What, dude? Have a good time with you? Like that’s so fucking tragic.” His words sounded sharp, a half-step off, changing the key on him again.

“No, dude, you’ll fucking go to the bathroom for two seconds and disappear for half an hour, man,” Tred said lamely, shrinking into mezzo piano, wishing he felt something other than what he was feeling - confused, upset, angry for no reason at his best friend. He felt like he’d missed a beat, or both of them had, skipping sixteenth notes of excuses or quarter notes of half-apologies somewhere along the way. Mavrus turned back to the dresser, kept rummaging, kept talking as he did, off-beat again.

“The bathroom is right off the living room, Tred. I promise I won’t disappear.”

Tred didn’t say anything. Someone yelled something downstairs, bruscamente, sharp and sudden. Mavrus froze, sighed, kept searching for something, kept speaking a half-beat too late or too soon or too much. 

“And if I do, you can fucking get Dave to throw me in the ocean. Or make me share a bed with him or something, dude.”

Tred didn’t say anything. The song downstairs stopped, and in the split second of silence, that eighth rest, Mavrus glanced over at him, sighed again, and his hands kept hunting in his drawer with quick sixteenth notes of anger or anxiety.

“Or I’ll go downstairs alone and have a shit time because Mac’ll think I’m upset and try to drag me out to the deck for a sidebar and someone’s spilled fucking Mike’s Hard out there and it smells like vomit, dude, I think someone threw up in the potted plant and Carl’s aunt will want to get payed back if her fucking ficus dies-”

“Are you upset?”

The hands, subito, suddenly, stilled. “A little bit, dude.”   
“At me?”

“A little bit, dude.”

“Because I won’t come downstairs?”

“A little-” The hands started again, andante, always andante. “Not because you won’t come downstairs, dude. I just wish we were doing something other than having a party tonight.”

“Mac would still be campaigning for the beeramid,” Tred pointed out. “And Dave would still be blasted.”

“Yeah but when those two go off the deep end it’s nice to just fucking- I don’t know, dude. Sit and chill with you. But not up here. In the living room or on the beach or something.”

“Why can’t we chill up here, dude?”

Mavrus sighed again and pulled out another shirt, barely glancing at it. “I don’t know, dude. It’s- different.”

Tred didn’t say anything. Something hung, divisi, in the air between them, where their melodies split, in the three feet between their twin beds, where the lamplight from the nightstand they shared was almost strong enough that they could see it spinning there, heavy but fragile, like if they spoke it would crash down, sforzando, fortissimo, loudly and suddenly enough to be heard downstairs, even over the music that they could still feel beating in simple four/four through the floorboards.

Then Mavrus spoke, and the spell was broken, and the rests let out their breath, and the hanging thing lifted out of the golden glow of the lamp. “I just like hanging out with you, man.”

“Yeah,” Tred agreed, voice lilting down the scale, the word too small to encompass what they were doing, too casual for the scene, too normal for this strange silence that had settled over them. “Yeah, man.”

Mavrus seemed to feel it too, seemed to think that if he let the silence hang, that  _ something  _ would return and drop, this time, crash through the piano keys or break the guitar strings in discordant notes. “It’s just easier, you know? Like Dave is fucking great and Mac is fucking great but- It’s not the same, dude. You get me.”

Tred nodded, and Mavrus, at the silence, never one to give rests their proper time, started again. “Like I can tell you shit I wouldn’t tell the others. Like Mac thinks he’s the understanding one but you  _ get _ things, dude. Like in your music, you  _ get _ me sometimes.”

Tred glanced down at his notebook, still open to where Mavrus had left it, spilling whole notes out onto the bedsheets. Cramped writing filled the pages, some lines scribbled out, others scrawled into the margins to fill a missing spot. The silence in the room felt like a missing lyric, he realized, like something needed to be erased or added to regain the balance that had shifted between them. He couldn’t pinpoint when it had shifted, exactly, but something in the verses of their conversation had thrown the chorus - where either Tred or Mavrus would give in and one or both of them would go downstairs, and one of them would be upset - something had thrown the chorus off rhythm, because Mavrus was still here and they were both angry at the other and yet relieved that he hadn’t left.

Tred spoke, tried to fix the missing line, regain the melody from where they’d lost it. “You’re my best friend, Mav.”

Mavrus glanced at him too, sang his line, matched the harmony, but he was still off-key, and something still clouded his golden eyes. “You’re my best friend, too, man.”

The song downstairs stopped again, for longer. Someone called out to Mac about the speaker being broken. Tred barely heard it over the chords he was speaking, a capella now, “I don’t want anything to change.”

“You mean like me leaving?” Mavrus smiled - not his usual sharp grin, but not quite on key either, something flat and low. “Too late, dude. Everything’s gonna change.”

“Everything already has changed.” Sotto voce. Mavrus wasn’t even meant to hear it.

His reply came back, dropping down to gentle piano, diminuendo. “Not everything.”

Tred glanced at him, searched for a melody to match in his words, his eyes. He was good at harmonizing with Mavrus. He wasn’t used to having Mavrus harmonize with him. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

The missing line hung in the air between them, not yet findable, just out of reach. Tred didn’t know if he wanted it to be written down.

“It’s something.” 

The music downstairs started again. The music upstairs waited for the conductor’s baton to drop.

Tred was supposed to talk again - that was how duets worked - but he couldn’t find the right note suddenly. “Is-” He was off key. Sharp and flat at the same time. He swallowed, gave himself a quarter rest, started again. “I wish you didn’t have to leave, man.”

“Me neither.”

Tred swung around to face Mavrus, all too aware of the lyrics on his page, fingers itching to grab a pen and write down the words that hung in the air between them, unsung. Mavrus leaned towards him, shirts discarded on his bed, beer cans shifting behind him in a melody of chimes. Half rests stretched out in front of them, across the space between their beds. Tred’s hands rose slightly, to grab something, a pen, maybe, or maybe Mavrus’s hand. Mavrus smiled again, settling into his usual sharp grin, but an alto line wavered beneath, turning it into a gentle third that emboldened Tred, leaned him forward to add a tenor line beneath it, harmonize, build to the finale.

“Will you stay up here tonight?”

Mavrus’s smile broadened, lowered a half step, fell into place in the chord they were building. “Dave can have my bed.”

Tred leaned further, let the tenor line fall, brought up a bass beneath it, supported the lyric that still hovered there, just out of reach. “Will you stay up here right now?”

“Mac can host the party.”

Three feet seemed to shrink, and the cadence rose. “Will you kiss me?”

Mavrus let the rest breathe, for once. “Would you mind?”

Tred didn’t mind - he hadn’t minded. He’d leaned forward, closing the space between them. The tempo slowed, ritardando. The music rose, crescendoed, messa de voce, a swelling that swept through the room and held them in a long fermata as they met in the middle, paused, an eighth rest of eye contact and sixteenth notes of hands and, finally, the sweet finale, where the melody stalled, held itself as their heart beats started again, ignoring the pounding tempo from downstairs, matching only to each other. Whole notes passed as Tred threaded his fingers through Mavrus’s hair, as Mavrus’s hands came up around his waist, as they fell backwards, clumsy, not separating, glissando, onto Tred’s bed, dolcissimo, soave, legato: sweet, gentle, smooth.

The final note hung in the air as they broke apart, daring them to break the silence with applause. Neither spoke, until Mavrus laughed, triplets shattering the last remaining harmony.

“Now everything’s changed.”

Tred smiled up at him, the harmonies in his head shifting to accord with this new key they found themselves in, hopeful A major singing sweetly. They’d never before written a bridge to the usual chorus. He went back to the coda, repeated for good measure: “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Somewhere downstairs, the music of a party was happening. Somewhere upstairs, they were composing something new.

**Author's Note:**

> it is, you must know, 3 am, and i have five tabs of Musical Terms open for this but i wouldn't have it any other way!


End file.
